Make a Freezer Map

We have one of those freezers that opens from the top. It's one of the best household investments we ever made, but if you have one, you know what a pain they are when you want to find something.

Mike and I are making a great effort to be debt-free by the end of the year, and one of the ways I'm helping is by upping my frugal efforts at food shopping. What better way than to use as much as I have on hand as possible?

So I decided to do an inventory of the freezer downstairs. Then it hit me: when you want to find something, what's better than a map? (If they create GPS for freezers, please lmk!)

I took everything out, and as I put it back in an orderly way, I did several things:

1. I used a piece of paper (on a clipboard) and drew a front-view of the freezer. Then I blocked off where each item went, and wrote down how many I have.

2. I took out things I need for dinners this week, which mostly includes meat I've browned or marinated and leftovers.

3. I put all of my daughter's diet foods in one area so she can take them down to her new apartment. This will free up almost 2 square feet of space!

4. I moved all the meat from the upstairs fridge's freezer to the downstairs, making more room upstairs. I'll get to that upstairs freezer another time.

So, if you are going to do an inventory anyway, think about creating a map, too!